AnybodyNobody

Hi, I am new to SR and have done a lot of reading but this is my first post. I will try to be succinct - I have a tendency to be very long-winded in text and not know what is enough or too much information at one time. So here is my (hopefully quick) backstory to get to my questions for today:

I am an ACoA and (reluctant to admit) Codie. My AM and I have always been "close". She has always seen us as being so similar as I always wanted to caretake her and thus mirrored a lot of her anxiety, depression, etc. and spent a lot of time being her friend instead of her daughter. Both of my parents were alcoholics throughout my childhood, they had a terrible on and off again marriage, and then he died suddenly of heart attack when I was 16. She has been for the most part single for the 13 years since that happened and is now a lonely, anxious, underemployed, frail for her age early 60's.

A few years ago she got sober. Supposedly got sober I should say. She moved out of state to live closer to my sister and nephew, meanwhile I got married, and so my relationship with her was over the phone and text with occasional visits. She maintained that she was not drinking (even when my sister would tell me she was drinking again and Mom would say sister was crazy and lying, and sister being scapegoat growing up guess who I believed). Then about a year ago my husband and I moved to the area where they all live for his work, coincedence. She and I spent a lot of time together for the first 6 months as she was very lonely and "had missed me so much." Then she got very depressed and stopped coming to visit. She and I would talk and she explained away all of these behavior changes to the depression and anxiety. I bought it hook line and sinker, having experienced depression myself that made me a total hermit.

In reality, she has been drinking "off and on" this entire time I thought she was sober. When her behavior spiraled a few months ago and I bought the "it's just depression" bit, really she had doubled her daily intake and was drinking all day every day to self-medicate. She just lost her small job because they busted her on the drinking and driving her client after drinking. So many things make sense now that I was trying (in denial I guess?) to explain away, like her sleeping all day, not coming to visit, falls that resulted in black eyes, not taking care of her health and dropping down to a severely low weight, etc. She admitted when I confronted her that she has been drinking all this time and lying to me about having gotten sober. She also admitted that she has driven me in her car after drinking.

We got her to go to detox last week and enroll in an outpatient program that begins this week. Now I am struggling with how to handle my relationship with her. I have done so much reading in the past week about ACoA, Codie behavior, etc. but am just not sure where to set my boundaries now that my trust is so broken. What level of relationship is healthy for me to have with this woman.

She is now acting like nothing happened, just going about her business (i.e. holing up at home and texting with me about mundane things). From what I've read it would be Codie to ask her about her treatment plans and pester her about followup appointments with her doctor. Or getting her social security income set up since she is now unemployed and declared bankruptcy last year. So I've just been texting back like nothing happened too. Not my job to make sure she follows through with recovery or taking care of her business, right? Or am I buying into the "don't talk, don't feel" I was taught growing up?

Also I am 7 months pregnant. It angers and terrifies me that she drove me drunk and put me and my unborn child at risk. I have told her that I cannot be a passenger in her car with her because I simply cannot trust that I am safe with her anymore. Apparently because of her talent at hiding it and my denial I just couldn't tell that she was inebriated. How do I know she is staying sober, should I just always assume the worst and hold this boundary? For how long, forever? Is there a way for her to build that trust or do I just always assume she is lying about her sobriety as she did in the past?

I hope any of this made sense and wasn't too long. Thanks for all of your posts that have helped me get some real insight and feel less alone dealing with this.

irisgardens

AnybodyNobody--just want to welcome you with open arms and let you know that you are bringing up excellent questions...to which I have no ESH at this moment...but there will be those who do and will come along.

I can assure you that you are NOT alone and you will find a community here that can and will support you as you figure out your choices to the questions you ask. I only 'awoke' to my parents alcoholism when my own teenage daughters were using drugs (adult children now--all 5)...so I made the best choices I could and needed through the help of therapy and hard work and beginning and keeping a recovery program (through alanon and therapy then; naranon and therapy now)...and made a lot of progress...and after a big Codependent relapse...and PTSD issues...am back working through more.

Glad you are here and congratulations on your pregnancy...I don't try to change the past...it is what it is...and today is always a great day to start looking at questions that affect our lives 'now' and determining what choices we want to make.

I can share one thing...setting boundaries with family members (from the moment I realized I had none--about 14 years ago)--continues to be my biggest growth challenge and is always hard...and yet...have found that whenever I do it...it makes me a healthier person.

God Bless.

thotful

I wonder about the very same things. Under the rug is how most conflicts are dealt with. Under the rug makes things worse, in my opinion. But, if someone refuses to respond to my request to discuss an issue...well, then it doesn't get discussed. Or, as you said, they can just lie.

My job is not to police other people and coerce them into behaving. My job is to simply define my life. Define who I am (takes a LOT of work and I'm getting there), and understand my needs in this life. I try my best not to do things for people that they can do themselves. I try to be OK with seeing them in pain. The disease will do that (cause our loved one pain). I can't control the disease. Didn't cause it, and can't cure it.

I can only make choices for me. I can choose to not ride with a person driving that may have been drinking (nothing personal - I just want to live). If you can't tell if there's been drinking and there's no trust in her honesty, you have every right to never ride with the person. It's an example of a boundary.

When I have set boundaries, maybe I haven't been the most "graceful" when doing it. But, in the end, they help me get healthy. Yes, some individuals LOVE my people-pleasing behavior. When that behavior has been reduced significantly, they might rebel. I hate to see people angry at me. I have to work on being OK with that. My people-pleasing self will want to fix things. My healthy self will say, "I'm taking care of me - it's nothing personal - they want to take it personally and throw a fit - they have the right to do that - but, I still have a right to my peace:. I try to remember that the only person that truly knows what's right for me...is me (or some might say the higher power).

So, my suggestion would be to do some personal discovery. Understand yourself as well as you can, so that you can figure out what YOUR own personal boundaries are. The more you understand yourself, the better you will be at boundaries (I'm sure all the other recovery stuff helps as well). I can't describe it very well, but even as my loved ones continue with their SAME crazy antics, my recovery helps me tremendously. I am IN situations that used to be difficult, but are easier to face now. For example, my mother tried to involve me in some discussion about my sibling and our relationship. Instead of getting riled up and telling her to mind her own business, I just changed the subject...or...come to think of it, I may have simply not taken the bait and I didn't answer. I am grateful for even a tiny victory.

one day at a time -

Keep reading. Keep writing!

Kialua

Welcome. Sorry for all your angst going through this with your mother. But it sounds like you have learned a lot, you know your sister was the scapegoat, you can see now you can't trust if your mother is sober or not. That's a great start. When I had to draw lines with people I would put the onus on me, and just say I couldn't do thus and such. If they asked why and belittled my decision I would just say I was overly protective, neurotic or whatever. All me and my decision, they didn't have to understand it or like it but that was my final answer. You don't have to explain yourself and it never works with an alcoholic to try to explain things anyhow. Good luck, keep reading here it can be really helpful.

sadsister62

Wow, Loved the "Nothing personal" reply, going into my tool basket!

AnybodyNobody

Update: when she came to see me earlier this week and asked me to go do errands and out to lunch with her, I told her I didn't trust riding in the car with her and she said that "kind of hurt her feelings" and that she is "99.9% sure she never had me in the car with her after drinking because she didn't want to drink beforehand if she was coming to see me" - which I believe, kind of, because she is/was so invested in keeping me in the dark about her drinking, that she would stay sober until she went home from visiting me mid-day. When she previously told me she had probably had me in the car with her after drinking it was when I first confronted her about the possibility and she was drunk as a skunk at that time. So who do I believe, sober Mom or drunk Mom?

But I also felt guilty for making her feel bad, for not trusting her. Then we went out and about - she drove. I don't have a car and she drives a stick-shift, which I know how to drive but am not practiced at. So she asked if she could drive, said she was sober, and I caved. Yuck, I think I just let myself go full on Codie!! I think I let her drive because I couldn't stand feeling like I made her feel bad and I thought that if I didn't make her feel better would mean she would leave right then and probably not eat lunch or do her errands and would go drink because I had triggered her shame.

I do believe she was sober at that time and I did feel safe in the car with her. But my husband was not happy with me when I told him... "all it takes is one time..." he said. I am feeling wishy-washy about my original boundary of "never ride in the car since I just don't know" and feeling more like I should be taking it one day at a time and evaluate when I see her whether I feel safe riding with her or not.

I am reading "Co-Dependent No More" and re-reading stickies here on SR, really trying to wrap my head around how co-dependent I truly am with this woman. I have so much work to do!

(I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it. I understand it intellectually. Just need to believe this in my heart!!)

tromboneliness

This stuff really is hard. In theory, it isn't -- the "correct" answer, in your situation, is to stick to the boundary -- don't ride with her, period. Case-by-case evaluation every time (a) is risky, because you may not be able to to tell, and (b) leaves you open to manipulation, e.g., "I won't ride with you today, you've been drinking...," "Why not, I had one, but that was three hours ago, I'm fine now" etc. (I'm great at establishing boundaries for someone else -- but doing it myself... not so easy! I set boundaries, then sometimes find that I... don't make them stick, and end up feeling like a failure. The easy, non-confrontational thing is to give in, enable the person, and just roll over -- that's what we've been doing all along, after all. With my qualifier, it's not about drinking -- she's been sober for many years and seems to be doing well [knock wood] on that score -- but in any relationship, there are boundaries, whether it's about who pays the phone bill, how quickly the laundry has to be dealt with, or anything else. Sometimes these "less critical" ones are even harder to identify, and seemingly the consequences of caving are less of a big deal than riding with a drunk driver.)

It never really ends -- that's why one does not "graduate" from the program; it's a lifelong pursuit.

T

thotful

My challenge in setting boundaries and working on being comfortable with them is not actually other people...it's me. Does my people-pleaser come out and tell me I should feel guilty, ashamed, or responsible for the pain I cause others when I have my boundary. I work to feel more OK with, accept, that people will not always agree with my decisions. I work to be OK with seeing their face contort and twist, and their voices whine, and they complain at me about my boundary. I work to be OK with other people not approving of my boundary. OF COURSE they won't. People that love my people-pleasing or codependent behavior will HATE IT when I decide I don't want to do it anymore. They might be thinking, "and how does this benefit me?" Well, guess what...it doesn't. My boundary ISN'T ABOUT YOU. It's about me.

My suggestion is to work on feeling better about yourself. WHO YOU ARE as a person. LOVING you JUST as you are. For example, can you look in the mirror, like dead center, put your nose on the glass close. and say, "I LOVE YOU" and really mean it? Try that out. When I first did it, I understood the uphill battle that was ahead of me. I needed to work on loving me more. My issue was not how well I pleased others around me and how insensitive they were about my feelings and ignoring my feelings. IT WAS ME. I was ignoring my own feelings. I was letting even the smallest whine from another person completely turn my decision around.

Trust me, you deserve to feel safe, period. Guess who decides if you are feeling safe? MOm?? NOPE. That would be you. I can't tell you if you feel safe and neither can mom. That's how you make the decision of riding with her or not. How do you feel??

That reminds me. Thotful needs to work on taking better care of himself. I have a brother whose been really nasty to me and I am reminded that I am worthy of good treatment. If he hasn't succeeded in treating me well, I'm not responsible for fixing it for him. One day at a time.

Just my two cents. You're the one that knows you the best...or, can at least do the investigation and figure out exactly who you are, what you want, how you're feeling, etc. There's no one right answer here.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

ajarlson

Great words thotful. I had to go NC with my AM because I wasn't strong enough to enforce the boundaries I had placed. It was exhausting continually trying to fight the urge to just give in and do what was expected, no contact is giving me the chance to breathe and get stronger.

newbie93

AnybodyNobody – thank you so much for sharing your story. It really resonated with me and is very similar to mine, although I am more in the same position as your older sister. I can completely sympathize with the difficult situation that you are in – addicted mother that has lied repeatedly, conflicted feelings of how to set boundaries, and a family of your own.

Every person has to take their own path in how they deal with this, but I will share with you some of the things I have learned. I had the skeptical eye towards my mom about her “sobriety” and didn’t believe that she was just mixing valium and alcohol (I knew there were other substances) and didn’t believe it had only been going on for a year (what she had told me), and in the end it turned out I was right. But at the time, it put an enormous strain between me and my parents (my dad was a huge enabler and would lash out at anyone who questioned her). I remember calling every addiction help 800-number listed on the web, explaining the symptoms my mom was showing, and hoping one of them would say that it was caused by something else. I was torn between feeling like a bad daughter to them and feeling a duty to protect my own two daughters from possible harm that could come to them if I left them in the care of my parents a few hours each week. As I tearfully said to one counselor, “What if my mom is telling the truth and I am being the crazy lady and permanently damaging the relationship with my parents?” The counselor said to me, “But what if you’re not the crazy lady – what if you’re RIGHT? And, what if you let your kids be in their care and something does happen to them because your mom is not sober. You would never forgive yourself.” And, I knew she was right. Particularly when you have your own innocent, young children involved, the issue becomes much larger than pleasing your mom – it’s about doing what’s right to protect the safety of you and your children.

Some key things I have learned:

-A zebra doesn’t change their stripes. Not that people can’t change, but a 30+ year addiction is a powerful thing and it takes a huge force that resides within the addict themselves to make that change possible.

-Addiction is an incredibly selfish disease. It takes what it wants when it wants it without any regard for the destruction left behind. My mother didn’t care if my children, my husband, my sister, or myself were put at risk by her actions. She only cared about feeding her addiction.

-The healthiest thing to do is often the hardest thing to do. There are more instances than I can count when the easier thing to do would have caused a much smaller rift or no rift at all between me and my parents. But, I had to protect my kids, protect myself, and protect my boundaries.

-Your head and your heart won’t sync up for a long time, if ever. Listen to your head.

None of this is easy. Know that you are a good daughter. Know that you are doing the best you can to navigate an incredibly difficult situation. Give your inner child a hug and give yourself a break. If you haven’t spoken to a counselor yet, I highly, highly recommend it. I went to one for over a year and I literally feel like she saved my soul. Talking to an unbiased third party can help tremendously. I will be saying lots of prayers for you and your family.

AnybodyNobody

Thotful, thank you for wording it so clearly. Yes that is the crux of the issue, MY need to be liked/approved by everyone. I am so uncomfortable with even the most minor disagreements with others, have poor boundaries, and avoid confrontation like the plague. Because underneath the discomfort is the fear/idea that I am unloveable. I have a lot of work to be done on that front.

Newbie, I appreciate your sharing these insights, very good reminders for me. I need to detach from the situation but not because my codependency is harming her ability to get better (which yes it is BUT that should not be my primary focus), rather to help myself heal and recover and prevent further damage to my family.

I found out from my sister that my mother didn't go to her outpatient intake appointment last week. Made some excuse to sister about how she needed her primary doctor to send a referral or her insurance wouldn't cover it. But she had had a week after getting out of hospital detox before the appointment to do that and when sister asked if she had called her doctor yet to make an appointment she got defensive and wouldn't commit to doing it. Sister (also codie but much less aware) offered to make that appointment for her, Mom told her to back off. I had spoken to Mom the morning of the appointment and she lied to me saying she was getting ready to head out for it, when obviously she had no intention of going.
Well since then she hasn't texted me at all. She is very reliant on me for human contact/emotional connection but its part of her pattern to withdraw if she is on a binge... so I am trying not to "crystal ball" the situation but I guess I am... I can only assume she has just been sitting home drinking since then. Since my sister and I are now in contact she probably knows I know she didn't go to the appointment and is feeling ashamed and defensive.

It has taken every ounce of self-control to not reach out to her. I can feel myself wanting to care-take the emotions I am projecting onto her, as if by doing that I can make her feel better and what? not drink? Ha. I know better. It is not my job to parent my parent. If she chooses to continue drinking, feeling terrible, and refusing the resources and support being offered, well that is her choice. So I changed my phone background to the three C's and every time I pick it up that is what I am reminded. It has helped keep me from contacting her.

I have never imagined being able to go no contact with her but I am now seeing how at the very least limited contact may be what I need to keep working on my own recovery. I am also contemplating seeing a counselor - there are obstacles (money, transportation, child on the way) but I'm sure I can work through those if I decide that is what I need.

tromboneliness

This is all very familiar, from when my qualifier was ill.

If there were a way to make someone stop drinking, we -- the denizens of SR -- would not keep it a secret. It would be the top-ranked item on the Stickies at the top of the forum, and all newcomers would be told to go read it immediately if not sooner!

But there's no way to make someone stop drinking, if they don't want to.

However, that is -- in its own way -- very liberating, because the fact that we can't make someone give up booze, means we get to stop trying! We can get past having to calculate our every move for maximum perfect-ness, on the logic that if we can somehow be 100% perfect, the alkie will no longer have any reason to drink, and will give it up! We can also let go of having to feel that we need to keep tabs on the alkie at all times, because every little thing they do might be the thing that pushes them past the Point of No Return to incurable alcoholism, etc. Does that make sense? When we do this, we're not giving up control -- we're giving up the illusion of control. The real thing, we never had and never will have, because it's impossible!

Believe me, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to behave so perfectly that a certain individual would have no reason to drink. Turned out, I was not the reason she drank!

T

NWGRITS

She doesn't want the help, so this is where you drop the rope. There's nothing you can do. I'm almost three years No Contact with my mother after she almost caused me to lose my kids to the state. She got hammered while she was supposed to be babysitting, the cops were called, and I got a phone call 3,000 miles away telling me that my ex-husband had ten minutes to get there from his work or the kids were going into custody (they spend summers on the east coast with their dad). You have a baby on the way. You need to start focusing on yourself and that child because it is your duty to protect him or her. If we don't break the cycle of abuse and codependency, then our children will inherit our dysfunction. Take control of your life and get help to stop the cycle. Either Al-Anon, Celebrate Recovery, ACA, therapy or any combination of those will help immensely.

Kialua

Yeah ain't that the truth.

thotful

I second that. If there was a quick and systematic solution, then AA, Al-Anon, SR, would be full of newcomers all the time and far less long-timers. It would just be seminars.

Because it's a constant issue, and a daily struggle, I go to meetings every single week. I'm always hearing something new, or expressing myself in ways that bring more clarity - in every meeting. So I keep going.

I like to read and write in SR as well for similar reasons. Just not being alone is extremely liberating. To understand, that I'm not crazy.